Misery Is Not an Option: Economy Needs More Demand

By Adam Hersh
Posted on July 29, 2011, 9:00 am

Three and a half years since the Great Recession began, the U.S. economy remains $56 billion, or 0.4%, below its pre-recession peak. Revised data show that the U.S. economy ground to a halt in the first quarter of 2011, growing by just 0.4%, while new data from the second quarter show the economy barely moved forward, growing by only 1.3%. Read MarketWatch’s story on “GDP grows slender 1.3% in second quarter.”

This pace of growth is too slow to generate significant job creation, and on this path we are more than one-third of the way to a lost decade.